Enter the Shaker Pt. 02

Rising from her slumber, Joa realized she was not alone and panicked, letting out a yelp she started awake.

The male Shaker perched over her flinched, his nose came to her neck, nipping and purring at her, licking. The act stirring an ache in the female. She surprised herself in becoming warmed and pliant, allowing him to tug her body this way and that. Her male, Grave. He was speaking but she could not understand him. The words in a soothing tone, a purr behind them. She relaxed and reveled in the attention, her core opening and leaking her moisture. Embarrassed, she turned away briefly only to be spun back around to face him.

Grave's mate woke uneasily. He'd been hovering over her, his chest pulsing softly so he could memorize her form despite his blindness. His wings enveloped them in the most natural of ways for a Shaker pair.

Territorial instincts drove him mad with images of their separation, if he'd ever have to hunt his female down, he would always know her form. He lowered, comforting his fussing mate, pushing his nose to his mark on her, nipping her. Joa's arousal a heady scent in their nest. His own hunger came forward, and he purred and caressed his female. His shaft stiffened, the tip began to lubricate. "I would have you again, mate" He shocked himself when she'd turned away from him. Possessively, he spun Joa around and pressed his lower body against hers, his scaleless secondary wings coming to wrap around her widened hips. Grave didn't move, and couldn't explain to himself why he'd reacted like this. He made a frustrated sound, a short growl. He needed his mate to accept this advance.

Joa went from languid to fearful at her mate's frustration. Grave's secondary wings wrapped around Joa possessively and she could feel his appendage close to her opening. Her body wept for him, and begged her to turn just enough for his sex to meet hers. She couldn't control her feelings, her need. The male's warmth opened her. His displeased growl brought her to full wakefulness. She put her hands on his face, and he turned into them, kissing her and rubbing his scent in. His body rolled into hers, his cock just out of range from her fold. She petted at him, his face, his chest, soothing whatever was wrong. Her folds were open and needy. "Please be inside of me" she begged.

Hearing his mate's breathless gibberish, Grave opened his blind eyes and touched her forehead with his own, grinding against her he smiled and laughed. Grave switched to the Sacred language "We cannot speak!" AHhahaha. He growled approvingly at his mate's undulations. A heavy need rising in him. Grave used his prehensile member to find her slickened entrance, his girth stretching her walls that have returned to surprising tightness after his knot. They sighed in unison at the joining. Grave's territorial instincts were satisfied, as he felt in the back of her channel, his plug attached to her cervix, keeping his semen stowed within her womb.

A low and pulsing growl filled their nest. They had completed their mating, but their bond was new. His mate had been so cold, he could scent no trace of another male on her, not even her parents. While this pleased him, he worried. How had she lived alone out here?

He remembered the few words she'd spoken when they met. Her grasp of the Sacred language was less practiced than his own, that was for sure. It wasn't really an issue. For his mate, she could be mute and he would tend to her. He could sense his young in her rounded belly, the seed that he had put there. Grave increased his pace, rubbing up against her slick walls, warming her from the inside out and freshly placing his mark in her. His mate, swollen with his young. He petted her abdomen as they coupled. The feel made his hormones rage. There were few more dangerous things than a Shaker male's need to crowd and guard his pregnant mate. How long would it be before their first young arrived? he wondered.

Grave indulged in fantasizing about his new young at Joa's breast while he entered her, his nest full and happy, the softness of a young's skin, Joa's womb and breasts heavy with milk and his seed. He imagined a female young, cool and soft. He would hold his females in his wings, he would hunt for them and warm them. He imagined a male young, one that would help warm Joa, and who he'd feed crushed bones as his father had. He would teach him to move through the earth.

"Oh Grave" Joa moaned. Her male was stretching her and filling her in all the right places. Grave was all power and tenderness above her, thinner from their intense first mating but still radiating strength in his thrusts. She was consumed by his presence and they climaxed together, Grave cradled in his Joa's hips and she in his wings. Shuddering in her release, her walls milked his shaft, pulling him deeper, coating their nest in combined fluids. A lesser knot the size of an orange swelled in the male's shaft, locking him in. The delicious pressure inside of Joa crested, releasing slick around her mate in a torrent, milking him. Grave released all the way inside of her with a growl, no longer seed but a liquid with a powerful warning to anything near enough to scent her. His body responding to her newly impregnated state, seeking to claim ownership over its mate in every way it could.

She was coming down from the high but Grave wasn't done yet. He rubbed their joined liquids all over her belly. A free hand lowered between his mating wings and massaged the mixture into her flesh, marking her this way too.

Grave bit her neck as Joa panted through the contractions of her release. A taloned hand rubbed obsessively at her distended womb. Pure male satisfaction painting a smile across his face at feeling what he'd done. That's the way she saw him before drifting off.

They lay entangled for a while, Grave left his cock inside of Joa even though his knot had subsided, feeling right, wanting to keep them joined. Joa's stomach rumbled noisily. They had devoured the carcass of the large camelid Grave hunted after their first mating. Grave had eaten all of the bones, his body eager to replenish his scales after what he'd shed. Constructing their nest while mating cost him thousands of scales, and the ones he had left were smaller, softer, and sparse.

He could easily have eaten two of the large beasts by himself, but for now his priority was to make sure his new mate had all she needed. At the sound of her hunger he rose, reluctantly pulling out of her. He nuzzled her neck, kissed her mouth and pawed a large taloned hand over her belly. Grave turned away to tunnel upward in search of a new kill.

Joa regained clarity once Grave left their nest for the second time, the urgency of mating subsided. A sinking pit in her stomach as she realized where he was going. Oh shit! If he couldn't understand her, she'd have to remember the Sacred language. She thought to follow him up, but her belly was swollen, her lower body ached, everything telling protesting against the idea of movement. Joa sunk her spines into the earth below instead, hoping to communicate to her mate before he broke the surface.

Grave emerged from the ground, eager to find his kill. He felt camelids walking around his nest, and called to them. There wasn't even a sound before razor sharp talons slashed his outer wings, near his head. His thin scales bending and splitting under their impact. The sharp claws left a large gash at the top of his wing near his right shoulder. His ears splitting as he heard the battle cry of a Flyer.

Peering around her new nest, Joa wanted to weep. They couldn't stay here, it was too dangerous! She examined their pocket of earth. His scales were so healthy, so strong. There were hardly any spaces in between his work, scales tessellating like a fine mosaic pattern formed the den walls, ceiling and floor. This nest was perfect and it had their scent, the pattern echoing the one he displayed for her that first meeting on the surface. She dropped her gaze to the floor, the dry grass he'd picked for them made considerate padding. A feature meant for a family nest, it was clear what her mate intended they'd be doing next. She glanced at her rounded belly, it was slowly reducing in size, her body absorbing Grave's excess seed, the fertilized eggs finding their place within her. She was able to decide when to let them grow into a live young, for now they existed as zygotes housed in her body. She could not let their young be born here, Joa thought sadly.

Grave's blood boiled. What was left of his scales rose in defence, but his stance was all offence. He reflexively jumped, shooting his massive body weight on the surface of the rock to kick up grit and sand, his wings funneled sound to his ears and allowed him to see above ground. There were four of them at least. He was starved from mating, his armored scales depleted from building a nest, he'd lost thirty percent of his body weight in the last eight days. But he was a newly mated Shaker male, with his hungry female resting below his feet. He would kill anything that threatened his nest.

Joa held her breath, her signals proven futile as she sensed her mate above ground. She felt him jump, and forced herself to move to the tunnel Grave left. Flyers! Flyers were attacking again! She ignored the protest in her body, refusing to be left alone again on this landscape. Now that Joa had mated, without Grave she would die of cold, the young inside of her demanding warmth she didn't have to spare by herself. Joa clawed her way up the tunnel, her wingless body easily following the trail left by her mate. She exerted herself to gain speed, despite her insides feeling all types of wrong. She had to call Grave back to their nest, he was in no condition to fight!

Joa broke the surface, and pulsed with her highest force to get her mate's attention. She saw Grave, battle ready a few feet beside their tunnel, his wings sparsely coated in small brittle scales and blood dripping from his face and back. To Joa's horror, six Flyers circled in the sky, all their attention focused on her mate. She pounded the ground and cried in alarm.

Grave turned on her in an instant, roaring and throwing up his wings in an umbrella over her. Having his new mate out of their nest made the male's entire body bitter, all instincts screaming to return his mate to the den and on her back. He growled at Joa, put a massive hand on the female's face and shoved her backwards into the tunnel. Grave came through behind her, scooping her up and pressing her form into his while the Fliers tried to chase after them, taking turns swiping at the hard earth. Grave's wings working triple time to close the exit behind them.

Joa held onto Grave in shock, watching his face and seeing the feral angry expression, his mouth twisted into a horrifying display of bone-crushing fangs. He was growling and working his jaw, nothing like the purr that she heard from him during their last eight days together. She scented his blood as his weakened scales fissured and broke under the force of closing the tunnel behind them.

Grave deposited her in the spot she'd been when he left, but moved to the other end of the nest. "How badly are you hurt?" he bit out. He was growling and panting, angling his body away from her. Joa was struck by his pointed withdrawal.

She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She had to think about her body to feel it. Tears welled up in her eyes as she'd scented her mate's blood. Flashbacks to when she was a young and lost her father overcame her mind. The pain in her lower body punished her for moving too soon after their mating. Grave's nostrils flared and he crawled slowly toward his female, his massive wings behind him.

Grave scented Joa's fear the whole way down the tunnel. He felt nothing but pain radiating off of his mate. He wanted to bite himself, he'd terrified her! She was injured! He was too afraid to touch her, if he did he might not be able to hold back. He wanted to take her roughly, crush her to him after that encounter, reinforce their trust. His scales were roughened up, not grown in enough to have moved the amount of earth he'd made them to just then. The gash in his wing was gaping and bleeding. Grave's adrenalin was still high, pissed that his nest was tainted with the scent of blood and fear, and Joa's tears.

The smell drove the fight out of him. She lay still, not making a sound. He lowered himself as he moved to get closer to her. Grave was compelled to check on his mate.

The female was in shock. At contact with his hand she started shaking. He heard her tears hit the floor of the nest. He shook himself once, trying to rid himself of the thoughts of the fight. "Joa, tell me what hurts." Joa stopped crying and tugged him closer, he was relieved at the response and extended his wing around her back. She moved to his wound and began licking at it to heal it. The females of the three Kind could do that, his saliva was useless.

"You can't move yet" Grave growled accusingly at Joa in the Sacred language. He repeatedly pulsed in her direction, scanning her body. It unsettled Grave to know his new mate had intentionally left their nest, or moved at all, when her body was in this fragile state.

"I warn you, Flyers kill father!" Joa tried desperately to make sense in the little she knew the Sacred language. She tensed, the pain in her lower body hitting her. Liquid trickled out of her.

Grave stilled as the nest's scent changed from blood, to his own. Joa's fear was drowned out by his own scent, it was radiating from her and drew his attention to her slit. Grave was on her in an instant. Something primal panicking in the male's mind. He positioned himself over his mate and entered her without warning, Joa gasped. Black dread crept up Grave's spine when he felt the mating plug in Joa's womb was dislodging, letting spill some of their fluids, the pressure behind it paining the female as it clung to her cervix. Oh hell no, he thought.

"Forgive me mate" He hissed, one hand caressing her abdomen. He moved a thumb to her clitoris and began massaging her, lapping at the side of her neck. Joa's body responded with slick liquid, and pacified her on the spot. Grave used his member to find his plug, every instinct screaming as though that barrier held his very life. The plug was necessary to keep the thousands of fertilized eggs contained in Joa's womb, so they had the time to settle and root within the female shaker. He positioned his tip at the distended portion of the plug. His girth stopping any more spillage.

"You will have pleasure Joa" He growled in her ear, hand rubbing her sex. He was patient, pulsing through his cock to see the operation. If he brought her to climax, the contractions would help him guide the plug back in place.

Joa breathed in her mate. Grave worked on her sex. Her walls clamping down in release, the spasms in her cervix allowing Grave to re-align his mating plug, pushing it back into position with his cock. He rode out her orgasm, remaining solid above her. Exuding desperate emotions.

"I am sorry Joa. Never again. I need you to lay still in our nest. You need to feed and I will kill for us." Grave's tone was pleading, his scent shifted with determination and pain and worry, a hand cradling her womb. "When the Flyers leave, I will feed us. I can protect you. I will make our nest safe for us. I will kill the Flyers for you. For our young." He brought his wings around them, "Don't move to protect me. You house our young, I house you. You care for us." He could feel his wound she licked at healing. "It is enough."

Joa welled up in tears. "The Flyers will kill you." she spat. "The flyers kill father, mh-my colony" She grabbed his wings, accentuating his broken bloody smaller scales. "You weak now" she said, stomach tightening in regret realizing her words. Grave's challenging growl following suit. "This nest..." she struggled to find the words "...n-not safe!" She growled "I will not give you young here!"

Grave propped above his Joa uncomfortably. He snarled, and moved off of her. He wanted nothing more than to wrap around her and lay peacefully in their newly mated bliss. He hated that she was so upset and scared, but Joa's hunger demanded his action. She carried their young, and she was hungry, and he would bring her a fucking kill and peace of mind. He could protect them, and she must trust him. "Don't move" he roared, tunneling back upward.

"No!" Joa yelled. But he wasn't listening. Joa wouldn't be able to follow him this time, he closed the path behind.

Joa didn't move from her spot in the nest. Her body hurt too much from the last time she did. She recalled how concerned Grave was for her, how he tended to her body. He'd made her feel safe, and protected, she didn't need to hear it from him. Cradling the belly he'd given her, she just stared at where he left. Pure concern, she sunk her spines in the earth, tracing her mate's movements. If the Flyers killed him, now they'd both perish.

To Joa's surprise, Grave never broke the surface. He tunneled away, farther into the flat land. Her heart clenched, her mate was too far! The male was nearing out of range from where she could sense him.

The herd of prey was just a mile or so away. Grave moved closer to the surface than was ever normal for a Shaker. His trajectory in the earth could be seen from the sky, which is exactly what he wanted. When he broke ground, he exited in a defensive stance, and sure enough, a Flyer was diving for the attack. Like a hair trigger, on contact he brought his stone crushing wings forward and enveloped the Flyer in a punishing embrace, the speed surprising for a being of his weight. If his scales weren't decimated, the smaller Kind would have died then and there. Grave incapacitated his enemy and dragged the smaller body under the earth, escaping the rest of it's troupe that followed suit. He scraped his captive against the hard rock, and with powerful talons, shredded the flyers wings. He heard the cries of the other Flyers as the turf was stained with blood, calling out to their troupmate. The carcass was ejected out of the earth. Headless, bones shattered.

Grave bellowed a territorial and triumphant war cry after his win, a sobering message traveling far across the landscape, sending tremors through the rock. He didn't hear the Flyers cries anymore.

As Grave re-entered the nest, Joa sat in disbelief. He brought with him two camelid carcasses, and the severed head of a Flyer. Shocked to silence, Joa regarded her mate once more. It had been so long since she'd seen another Shaker male, that he seemed so large. No, she thought, Grave was larger than any male she'd ever met. Her colony had been eradicated by the ferocious troupe of Flyers in this land. She looked at the unmistakable colorful marks on the Flyer's head.

Joa suddenly felt cold. She reached toward Grave's muscular frame, and whined. Her mate greedily closed their distance and wrapped around her, scooping her into the natural configuration for mated Shakers. A purr seated in his chest, he nuzzled the side of her neck. Grave was panting from the exertion of the kills. With ease, he rendered the flesh from the camelid and set the meat aside for her. He took one of it's ribs and crushed it, another piece for her.

Joa hesitated at the tempting food. Her hands on Grave.

"Please feed, Joa." he said.

They worked on the first carcass together. Grave kept a secondary wing wrapped over her shrinking middle, the mating completing its cycle. Frustration sat at the edge of his movements.

Grave ground the bones in his teeth as if they were merely stalks of celery. He would occasionally offer small pieces to Joa. Though obviously starved himself, more satisfaction was derived from feeding his mate. She had eaten most of the camelid, her hunger satiated.